Life of my own
by YukitoK
Summary: Grissom gets shot by an unknown assailent, the CSI's need to figure out who it is before he kills Grissom. Minor GS.
1. Default Chapter

Hey y'all. This is Yuki. I totally edited this story and will be doing so over the next...well however long it takes to finish it. I wrote this story 3 years ago and it needs ALOT of TLC...please stick with me.

Title: Life of My Own

Rating: pg-13

Warnings: second season spoilers..."scooba-doobie-doo".

Disclaimer: owned by CBS and affliate stations, not me. oh and "Who are You" is property of "THE WHO" I make on money off this fic thanks.

R&R if you wish.

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Gil Grissom was a man of thought.

No one had ever debated that fact.

What he intended to say tonight, he had been thinking about for a long time: even by his standards. It was a problem. His heart told him he was in love and his mind chose to analyze. His scientific mind had been stumped by one of the most human questions of all.

'Why?' was scientific enough to get a grasp on; biological signals, chemical reactions…these where easy. 'What?' had been giving him problems ever since . . . ah . . . the fateful 'When?' He knew when --- chalk --- that had been when. No one had ever looked at him like that. She had cared, he knew they all did, but if she had looked at him like that some time prior, HE had never noticed. This, if he was honest with himself, was entirely possible; probable, he amended. There was softness in those brown eagle-eyes of hers, a softness that he rarely saw and that was rarely directed at him.

'Hey, are you ok?' She had dared to touch his face, dared to look at him as though he were human. The irony of the 'Where?' of his epiphany was not lost on him; outside of a crime scene. The 'Who?' that had gotten the master criminalist was thirty-three year old Sara Sidle.

When Grissom had identified the feelings he had toward Sara, he had found him self at a clashing of obligations. He had known her for a long time; he had been her teacher in college. It was awkward, one had to admit.

Grissom was painfully aware of the fact that since he had never figured out when to show emotion, he had opted to cut out showing it all together. Resulting in the inevitable, 'I wish I was like you Grissom, I wish I didn't feel anything,' shit that she had pulled on him. She had never known how much that hurt. He never planned to tell her. But if that was how she truly felt, there was his obligation to her. What if…stupid 'what'… what if he wasn't good enough. He couldn't change what he was; a tired, unemotional, old man.

The obligation to his job, he was her senior, her superior. If Mobley ever found out, Grissom was sure that there'd be more than hell to pay, it may be his job. The relationship would be inappropriate, and they would surely move Sara to day shift…something Grissom told himself he couldn't deal with. They where a family, him and his team, no matter how strange and dysfunctional they where at times, they all learned to work around and with each other; turning them into the top CSI lab in the country.

Then again, there was the obligation to his heart. He always tried to tell the truth to himself and those he considered his friends. Silence was a lie, Grissom had done his job too long not to know that.

He never thought about any of this at work; only in the sleepless afternoons, at home in his townhouse, where all that could go wrong danced in his weary mind. 'Never' did not extend to today. Today he had something to tell her; the truth. Damn the consequences. He was sick of hiding behind lies and excuses. That and he owed her a dinner.

He glanced at his watch, Sara was due any second. He decided to go outside to wait for her. Like him, Sara was always early for work. Grissom glanced at the clock; they had an hour and a half, if she showed up when she usually did. Enough time for a nice burger joint.

He shut and locked his office door. He was risking a lot on this he knew, but if she could love him, could share his feelings; he gave himself a mental shrug, maybe he wasn't such a hopeless case after all.

He smiled slightly as he stuck his head into Greg's lab, "Hey Greg, I'm going out for a while, but barring some massive explosion, don't page me, ok?"

Sanders glanced up at him from the microscope he was looking into, "Yeah, alright," he looked back down.

There was a pregnant pause as Grissom let the young man think through what he had said. Greg looked up again and blinked rapidly, as if he had just been slapped in the face. Grissom leaving the office an hour and a half before shift started? He looked suddenly to the door. "Why?" "I have a date," he tapped the doorframe and made to leave.

"Wait," said Sanders blinking again, "You have a date?"

"Yeah, is that a problem?" Grissom said in a tone that he seemed to use a lot with Greg. The one that said 'yes' and 'what don't you understand' at the same time.

"Dude, I haven't had a date in weeks!" said Greg.

"Well, you can't be good at everything," Grissom said lightly and walked out. Sanders' smooth brow crumpled as he tried to decipher weather that had been a complement or not.

Then he heard the young man mutter "'can't be good at everything'" and something about being under appreciated. Grissom stuck his head back in.

"Oh and uh . . ."

Greg startled, he had thought he was alone.

"My name's not 'dude' Greg."

Greg was visibly flustered, "Right boss, sorry."

Grissom smiled the half-irritated smile he reserved solely for Sanders and said, "Bye Greg."

He shook his head as he walked down the hall toward the parking lot.

That kid was great; Grissom liked him more than he'd ever tell him. Greg had heart, though it was hidden behind a childishness that he never seemed to grow out of. Every man to his own…Grissom paused…as long as 'every man' wasn't doing anything too annoying in his lab. Part of Grissom sympathized with young Sanders, part of him wished that all the childishness would just go away and usually the later part of him won.

Gil Grissom stepped out of the building and into the waning light of the sun.

To wait for Sara . . .

To wait for hope . . .

What he got --- was a bullet.

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Roll opening credits and :-D THEME SONG! WHHHOOOOO are you? WHO WHO? WHO WHO? I really wanna know a-WHOOOOO are you? WHO WHO? WHO WHO? Come on a-tell me a who are you YOU? YOU? YOU? YOU? YOUUUU? Yay!  
Frumpy commercials 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When Catherine pulled into work the whole parking lot was roped off and flooded with lights. The former stripper blinked as the fake sun shone harshly in her aqua eyes. She brushed her straw streaked, strawberry-blonde hair back from her fragile and pretty face.  
Cops swarmed everywhere.

"What the hell?" Catherine's stomach formed into a tight knot. This wasn't right, all of her human instinct said so. "Shit." She said, for no apparent reason. Climbing out of her car, she looked around for someone to give her some answers. All of the police avoided her eyes, and she kept walking past the crime tap until she spotted a blue lab coat in some shadows and got close enough to recognize Greg Sanders hiding between a sad looking shrub and the building.

"Greg?"

He didn't answer, so she came closer. There was blood all over him.

"Shit," she said again. He looked up at her and his large brown eyes were confused, in pain.

"Greg, are you alright?" she put a hand on his shoulder, he didn't blink. "Greg, answer me."

"He told me to dial 9-1-1," he started in a whisper, hardly moving his lips, "The guy, he came out of nowhere. It all happened so fast, Sara was crying . . . blood everywhere . . . Catherine," his voice shook dangerously. He was near tears and she knew it.

Catherine tightened her grip on his shoulder; she needed answers, NOW, "Greg, who got hurt? What happened?"

Greg was breathing hard, fighting tears, but he managed to get his voice under control, "Grissom --- the guy he," Sanders began to cry. He blurted out, "He shot him."

The young lab technician sat on the sidewalk and cried into the sleeves of his ever-present lab coat.

Catherine just stared at the area where he had stood, looking into nothing, her perfectly painted lips open in shock. Under her breath she said, "Oh shit."


	3. Chapter 3

Okay I still think this is a little bit sappy, but I tried to make the dialouge (to the extent that there is any in this chapter) more interesting. I'm sorry for those of you who thought I was actually updating new material...as soon as I get through editing this (which should be soon; finals are done next week) I will break out the old notebook where all of this is written long-hand and write more.

I wish I had friends as good as these guys, but I guess Grissom probably doesn't realize how much they love him until he gets into trouble huh? Too bad that's the way life has to be isn't it?

Enough of my depressing rambling...ONWARD!

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Chapter 3

Sara Sidle sat in the ER waiting room, her new jeans and blue baby t-shirt covered in blood. People stared as they passed by, nurses mostly, trying to ascertain if she was injured, but just to stupid to notice. A small man of about forty sat on one of the couches, too wrapped up in his own troubles to notice her.

The room was comfortable, the carpet and furniture red, of all colors; the influence of the flashy Vegas Strip she guessed. The big screen TV against one wall blared 'Who's Line is it Anyway?' the laughter echoing and dying down the sterile white hallways. She took in none of this; all she could see was Grissom's face, pale even in the red of the desert sun. Blood . . . pain in his intelligent, expressive blue eyes . . . his weight in her arms. She…they… could loose him. The thought was a terrible one.

"Sara?"

The young CSI jumped and looked up at the worry-lined face of Catherine Willows.

"Sorry. How is he?"

All Sara's anguish came out in a rush, "I don't know, they won't tell me." Her voice cracked in her rage, her voice etched with despair, "They say," a tear of frustration slipped from a liquid brown eye, she cleared her throat, "They say I'm 'not family', well if we're not family then who the hell is?"

"I don't know." They were Gil's family, but how to make them see that, was something else again. All she could do was offer comfort, or what little she could give. She sat down next to her younger associate and touched her arm gently, "Come on sweetheart, let's get you cleaned up."

"No," said Sara stubbornly, "I'm waiting right here. When they feel ready to talk, I wanna be here."

Just then Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown came tearing down the hospital corridor. Catherine had never seen either man so worried. "What the hell is going on?" were the first words out of Nick's mouth.

"Well we don't really know, the hospital staff isn't helping and I wasn't there." All three looked at Sara, who looked, to Nick, like she had just been through a bloody war.

"Sara, can you tell us what happened?" Warrick asked in his gentle bass voice, his brown forehead crinkled and his greenish-blue eyes melancholy.

Sara swallowed hard and began to tell her story, reliving it in her mind.


	4. Chapter 4

So here's the real question I have with this chapter; if I enjoy torturing Grissom and I identify the most with him, then does that mean I enjoy tortuing myself? Probably. Though to be honest I enjoy watching the other people react to his weaknesses. Because not even Grissom can hide a bullet wound

...or can he?

NOTE: in Max Allen Collins excellent CSI books he uses italics to denote flashbacks or theorizing...so that's why this chapter is in italics.

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Chapter 4

_Sara Sidle sang as she drove playing percussion on the wheel of her little silver Honda. Her soft, shoulder-length brown hair was tied back into a knot at the back of her head. Almost to work, she turned the radio off._

_Sara heard a gun shot._

_She turned the corner to the CSI building and her headlights revealed a ghastly scene. Greg Sanders was bent over a still figure lying on its stomach…a still figure with graying hair, wearing all black. Horror coursed through her, her blood ran cold. She didn't hear herself scream Grissom's name, nor did she remember throwing her car into park and running to his side._

_She turned him over and he opened his lively electric blue eyes._

_He didn't cry out, he didn't wince, he said calmly, "Greg, go dial 9-1-1."_

_A terrified Sanders took off for the building. Sara looked her boss over. The gunshot wound was visible even though he was dressed in his usual black. When he had fallen forward from the gun shot his forehead hit the pavement and now he was bleeding badly. When he spoke his voice was calm, though his eyes were tightened in pain._

_"Sara, don't be scared."_

_She grabbed his hand, it was already cold._

_"Oh God Grissom, don't do this."_

_"Sara, don't cry," he said steadily, but then gasped suddenly and she began to sob in earnest. She brought his head up and pressed it to her, crying into his peppering gray hair. She felt his warm blood running down her front._

_"Sara? Sara?" his voice was quiet, but tremulous. He was frightened._

_"Yeah?" she nearly choked on her tears._

_"There's something, I have to tell you."_

_"What?"_

_The ambulance arrived, as did cops. They made her let him go, physically retching her hand away from his._

_She had screamed his name in desperation. He couldn't go…this wasn't happening._

_"Sara, don't be scared."_

_Then they had taken him away._


End file.
